January 06, 2016

Enchiladas are yummy any time of the year but I seem to really crave them in the winter as creamy, hearty eats on long, cold winter days. I also love that they can be made ahead and baked later or even frozen and reheated later. Double batch anyone? Makes a quick dinner later, some night when I don't have time to cook but I don't want to run through a drive through.

Even though this recipe takes an extra ten minutes to make the sauce from scratch, it's so much tastier than using a "cream of" soup, and the white sauce is super easy to make--worth it!

January 02, 2016

Chicken and Brown rice soup with veggies. Perfect for both summer and winter, always nourishing, always comforting, makes a body feel better when well and when sick. Be it ever so humble...there's nothing like chicken soup.

December 28, 2015

I always thought there were only two ways to make hot chocolate: dry mix added to water or the chocolate syrup added to milk. Welcome to the third way and not only is it delicious, it makes an adorable Christmas gift or addition to cookie/candy trays: hot chocolate on a stick. Basically, it's a soft fudge that when stirred into hot milk, melts into delicious hot chocolate milkness.

I looked at several different recipes for this on Pinterest but I ended up making my own recipe. The first batch was too hard and wouldn't melt, the second batch was too soft and never hardened up enough to stay on the "stick", but just like Goldilocks and Baby Bear's bed, the third batch was "just right" and became a huge hit with my family and with everyone who received it as part of a gift. I will definitely be making another batch or three next year. (And another one in a week or two with white chocolate).

June 23, 2015

There are basically two ways to make from scratch Mac & Cheese, that I know of, at least. The easiest is the oldest style, the way my Nannie (Grandmother) made it which was pasta, cheese, and milk. The end. Fabulous! Truly. (Recipe for Purist Mac & Cheese)

The second way, which most people are more familiar with is by making a cheese sauce by way of a traditional white sauce and it is also fabulous. To me, the recipes aren't in competition, I just pick the dish that best meets my needs.

When I'm at home cooking for just us I tend to use the first method because I have a little more control over the circumstances and can dig into it hot out of the oven. When I'm looking at a potluck situation, like I am tonight, prepping pasta for my church women's auxiliary's turn to provide dinner at the Ronald McDonald House, I go with the white/cheese sauce version which preps a day or two ahead, and can be forgotten until it's time to re-heat it in the oven just prior to serving and gets even better as leftovers.

Not that the pasta/cheese/milk version doesn't make for great leftovers....if there ever were any, I mean.

I do have one little trick up my sleeve that I've never seen in other recipes and that is adding a little chicken soup base to the sauce for an extra kick. The same could be done by cooking the pasta in chicken broth but pouring out all that broth out after the pasta cooks hurts my little chicken broth-loving heart too much so I simply stir in a little soup base or comparable bouillon paste. I use any of these four labels: L.B. Jameson's Chicken Soup Base, Tone's Chicken Base, Better Than Bouillon Chicken Base, or McCormick Chicken Base.

This recipe also works wonderfully for freezer meals. Just make and divide into two or three freezer containers depending on the size that works best for your needs. Even better, add chopped cooked chicken and frozen peas, and you have easy dinners ready to bake. Also, the recipe can also be easily cut in half.

June 14, 2015

When I was first married and still trapped in the idea of being "the perfect wife", not that I was ever perfect, just that I tried to be what I thought would make Gene think I was the perfect wife... boy, was there ever a more loaded psychological statement than that one? Yes, I know. I'm still not perfect but I do, at least, realize with 23 years hindsight that Gene loved me for who I was, and am, not because of some baggage in my head. Anyway, back then one of my goals was to make a gorgeous, perfect, from-scratch meal every single night including homemade bread. I did it most nights but it required hours of planning in advance and a couple of hours in the kitchen every day. And that was just for dinner!

While I loved, and still love, to cook real life came crashing in and I soon realized that even though real food, from-scratch cooking, is always the ideal, to accomplish that even for a majority of time requires a few kitchen hacks. Back then I had two for bread: the bread machine and the angel biscuit.

The beauty of angel biscuits is that you can make a huge batch and just pull off what you need for dinner, roll them out, let them rise for 20 minutes to come to room temp and bake them off. Using both the leavening action of traditional bread: yeast, and that of the biscuit: baking powder, plus baking soda and buttermilk.

Baking soda is activated by acid which is why most biscuit recipes call for buttermilk. A kitchen hack I learned in my Mom's kitchen is to use "sour milk" when buttermilk isn't available. You simple add 1 Tbsp of vinegar or lemon juice to each cup of regular or what my Nannie (Grandma) would have called "sweet milk". You simply mix the two together and let stand for a couple of minutes until it thickens and curdles: buttermilk!

The one real drawback to angel biscuits that we didn't know about 23 years ago is shortening. My Mom was a cake decorator, back in the dinosaur days of no other option but Crisco and powdered sugar frostings, so we had huge, multiple cans of shortening at our house. I have a confession. Even though I know shortening is a heart attack waiting to happen, we all know the evils of trans-fat, I think I actually drooled on myself a little in the theater when we went to see The Help and Minnie fried that lovely chicken in that big cast iron skillet full of Crisco. Yes, ignorance was indeed bliss. I miss that shortening fried chicken!

But I wasn't willing to completely write off the angel biscuits. You can make traditional biscuits with butter instead of shortening, they're just a little more finicky, a little more crumbly if you're trying to knead and roll them out by hand. But with angel biscuits I don't have any problems at all. I cut the butter in by hand (and use half the amount of it than called for in most biscuit recipes) and then put the dough together in the mixer, using a two bowl method, wet and dry, and it comes together quickly and beautifully. The texture that bakes out is tender, with a crumb exactly midway between a biscuit and a dinner roll. Perfect for any meal but very convenient for work night dinners. (Great with sausage gravy for breakfast too!)

May 16, 2015

I love oatmeal. I've always loved oatmeal. No offense to those who love the little packets with the bits of dried fruit in it that you make with hot water but I love "REAL" oatmeal, the kind you can really sink your teeth into, that stays with you for hours, that's a total pain in the butt to cook because you have to do it on the stove. I did try to make it in the microwave once. Once. I think it took me a week to clean all the oatmeal "glue" gunk out of the nuker.

I have two solutions: 1) small slow cooker, the kind you would put an appetizer dip for a party in, or 2) the rice cooker. Both are super easy but the rice cooker wins hands down, to me. All the ingredients get thrown in together and when the lights turns off, the oatmeal is done. Voila!

April 18, 2015

Has anyone else seen this photo on Pinterest and been intrigued? It kept coming up and every time I would think "I love avocados...need to do this someday." Someday became a couple of days ago and here's the shocker: even my husband who hates avocados loved this on his BLT! Seriously, it's sooooooooooo good.

I saw a different version that said to refrigerate for two hours to overnight.

I was also intrigued by the overnight directions. Avocados are hard to keep at my house because, like I said, my husband doesn't like them and I'd prefer to only eat half at a time but I hate wasting the browned edge from the second half I store. I've tried the plastic wrap, leaving the pit in, and lemon tricks but none work perfectly well, in my experience. But I've never tried oil to stop the oxidation. I think this recipe will work. Our avocado "salad" got finished off the night I made it with both of us eating it but I think either the oil trick might work or the fact that the balsamic vinegar I used browns the avocado a bit anyway the oxidation wouldn't be noticeable. It's not like the oxidation changes the flavor of the avocado anyway, it's just a head thing I can't get around even knowing it doesn't mean anything.

This is delicious! The combination of tart vinegar (or soy sauce/lemon juice in the original) with the spices and creamy avocado was spectacular, alone, and as a condiment/salad on our BLT's. I also tossed the last spoonful of it later onto a salad and skipped the dressing.

My version was a bit different but still in keeping with the original intent:

Glenna's Avocado "Salad"

Recipe by Glenna Anderson Muse

Adapted from Pinterest

Ingredients:

1 ripe Avocado, chunked

1 Tbsp good Olive oil

2 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar

Cavender's Greek Seasoning to taste (or simply salt and pepper works well too)

Optional: Sriracha sauce to taste

Directions:

1) Toss avocado chunks gently in olive oil, covering all sides of each. (Use a bit more oil if needed).

2) Add rest of ingredients and lightly toss as well.

Eat as is or add as a condiment or compliment to sandwiches, salads, or grilled meat.

January 23, 2015

In keeping with James' birthday dinner of Ina Garten's Pastitsio (Greek Lasagna) and Greek Do Nothing Pineapple Coconut Cake, I made a large Greek Dinner Salad with Easy Homemade Greek Vinaigrette to go with the pasta at dinner.

Quick and easy, it's a matter of chopping a few fresh vegetables from the crisper, tossing over some creamy feta, and whisking together a few clean-eating pantry ingredients to dress the salad just before serving--and not having to dig through the fridge for clunky, who-knows-how-old bottled dressings!

January 08, 2015

What's better than a hot bowl of comfort on a cooooooooold winter day? A hot bowl of comfort that's as good for you as it tastes! Can it get any better than those two things? It can when it's a quick layer into the crockpot, flip the switch, and getting to go one of the other million things on my to-do list until it's time to grab a bowl, a spoon, and our appetites.